Haunted Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah

Ancestors of Mormon Pioneers are justifiably proud of the heritage and history of the brave people who settled Utah, Nevada and California in the 1800s.

One terrific organization devoted to preserving that heritage is the Daughters of Utah Pioneers. Website for DUP.

Maureen Smith, the vice president of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers took a few minutes to talk with me about the recent ghost sightings at the museum.

On October 10, 2007 Utah Capitol State Police saw an image on the monitors which come from the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum.

One of the officers actually took a photo of the image in the monitor, and gave the photo to the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Museum.See the image here.

The monitors are in the Utah Capitol building, and the images come from the cameras in the Museum a few blocks away. State Police watch the monitors, and respond if there appears to be an intruder.

The image appeared four times over an 8 day period, and always appeared between about 11:00 PM and 3:00 AM. During these hours the Museum is closed and empty, no one is inside accept cleaning or maintenance.

During this 8 day period the motion detectors in the Museum were set off several times, and the image appeared 4 times. The ghostly image appeared without setting off motion detectors sometimes, other times motion detectors went off without showing the image.

Each time the image was seen it looked like the same person, and the image always persisted for several minutes.

Capitol State Police are the security for the Museum so they sent Officers to investigate and found the Museum secure each time they saw unusual images or motion detectors went off.

In an interesting side story, the Museum director speculates that she may know who it is in the image.

20 Years ago a “sampler” was stolen from the Museum. A “sampler” is an embroidered piece of cloth that students of embroidery used to prove that they knew their stitches.

A Museum staffer recognized the Sampler listed for sale on eBay, and that staffer contacted eBay, and sent documentation that the item was stolen, so eBay contacted seller. The eBay seller, who’s family had purchased the sampler in good faith years earlier, immediately returned the sampler to Daughters of Utah Pioneers.

During the interval of the images appearing to the State Police, and the return of the sampler, a Custodian reported that on one night he saw a young lady, dressed in black sitting on a bench in the museum foyer.

The custodian explained that the museum was closed and she must leave, he unlocked and opened the front door for her, she never spoke but arose and walked out the door, BUT NOT DOWN THE STEPS! The girl floated above the steps, and sidewalk, until she disappeared!

This story was brought to our attention by Carolyn Richardson, a Daughter of a Utah Pioneer. The story originally appeared in their newsletter.